#1 Sourcing in Joy 2022
Welcome to 2022
This is your invitation to embark on
a year-long excursion,
nine months, each forty days long,
afloat on the River of Joy.
Our journey takes us
toward a deep dive into
the Ocean of Bliss.
“River Dance,“ encaustic by Pat Heck
EXCURSION ONE: EXPLORING THE SOURCES OF JOY
To begin your voyage, you are invited to spend the first forty days of this new year – January 1 to February 9 — immersing yourself in those things that source you in joy. Where have you found joy; what joys sustain you; what joys bring you back to yourself during difficult times?
To find, to remember, and to refine those sources of joy, you are asked to spend some part of every day imagining you are sailing on your own River of Joy to its headwaters, its origin places, and exploring what you find there.
For example, many creation stories of our world’s peoples describe an origin place of perfection, a paradise, if you will. This is a beautiful place to begin your imaginary journey of joy, for joy. From the Hebrew Bible, to the Hindu scriptures, to the Scandinavian myths, to the indigenous people of Siberia, to the Navajo accounts of First Man and First Woman, we learn of four rivers that emerge at the center of this perfect world and then spread out across the world in four directions. Carrying messages and stories about their source places.
Most of us are reasonably familiar with the story of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible which describes a river that flows through the Garden of Paradise, watering its riches, and then dives underground to emerge as headwaters of four noble rivers. Scholars have identified these as the Tigris, the Euphrates, and less assuredly, the White or Blue Niles and/or the Ganges. In the months to come, we plan to visit these notable waters, their holy lands, their people, their stories.
For this month of Joyful Sourcing, you are asked to play in the deep ancient waters of your own sense of paradise. At least for a few moments every day. It seems possible that this almost universal “mythic memory” of a perfect world contains a potent incentive to bring forth, however we can, in whatever ways we can, those energies of paradise into this world. Now. Today. Not to return to the Garden, but to create it here. Now. Today.
To navigate the waters of your paradise, here is a mythic vessel.
WELCOME ABOARD
Our ship for this part of the journey is Noah’s Ark. Here is one version of that famous Ark. For our journey, however, during these days of exploring ever more deeply your sources of joy, you are invited to create your own Ark, and fill it with all the beings, memories, thoughts, ideas, images that give you joy, remind you of joy, and offer you joy.
What in this lifetime, in this world has given you experiences that felt like paradise? Can you embrace them so powerfully that they source joy today’s space and time?
(I am aware that Noah and his Ark come later in the Genesis story than the Creation of Paradise, but when I asked my imagination what kind of craft we might embark upon for a mythic trip to the waters of paradise, the Ark appeared in all her glory, with the invitation to come fill it with joy and the sources of joy.)
Many versions of an origin place speak of a high mountain at its center, as well as a majestic tree, a tree of life, or as the Norse tradition has it, a Cosmic Tree, the Pillar of Heaven. Are there reflections of these images in your version of paradise? Do they offer clues to your ability and desire to stay connected to your own private sources of joy and delight?
Enjoy the journey; bring forth new creations from the rich wisdom of your soul’s true origin in the waters of paradise, from now until February 9, when we will venture out of Paradise, carrying its news, testing our beliefs about joy as we sail along the Nile on Cleopatra’s barge.
EXCURSION ONE AND ONE-HALF:
SWIMMING IN THE WATERS OF PARADISE
Here we are, over half way through the month for finding sources of joy in ourselves and in our world. The journey has been through an imaginary paradise, replete with trees of life, holy mountains, and sacred rivers.
Voyaging with chosen companions aboard an individual, elegantly designed version of Noah’s Ark.
Here’s mine:
My image has been of a regatta of Arks nestled at the foot of the Holy Mountain, with each fellow traveler exploring and finding sources of joy on land and in the waters – calling out discoveries, felt as if for the first time. A pearl, a flower, a seed, a message written in the sand, hot springs, children laughing, someone singing, a friend to laugh with…
A practice:
Go for an imaginary swim, snorkeling in the waters of Paradise. See what wonders are there for you — everything primordial, everything new. Choose some delight that opens you to deep pleasure: a dolphin, a lotus, a bright fish, a bubbling spring. Invite that delight to suffuse your enchanted body, your smiling heart, your wise mind. Sense that joy spreading out from the rivers of Paradise to all the rivers across the world. Strong enough to bring some perfume, some fragrance of pure joy as your gift to the Earth in this moment.
When you emerge from these waters are you willing to carry this fragrance of pure joy into your actions and activities today? Now?
Remember to Keep Coming Back to this exploration of your images of Paradise. Keep Coming Back to the sources of your joy. And keep remembering to carry their effects into your world. Blessing and being blessed.
Joy in the World.
And in me.
STAY TUNED FOR A
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
ON FEBRUARY 10, 2022, AT 1:00 PM, PACIFIC TIME
Please consider sharing your creations with others who follow the Year for Joy Calendar, below, in the comment area of this posting.
From Joy all beings have come.
In Joy all beings are sustained.
To Joy all beings return.
This is the highest teaching.
-The Upanishads
This joyful journey toward paradise has been inspired by Richard Heinberg’s wonderfully evocative book, Memories and Visions of Paradise.
Buy the calendar:
The Lady’s Year for Joy
The Lady’s Year for Joy is your personal guide and journal as you seek, focus, explore, test, recognize, experience, embrace, offer, and report
the truth of Joy in the world.
For you and for gifting your friends — this new calendar will enrich your daily reflections.
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January 3, 2022 @ 4:14 pm
Today, the first Monday of January and
the first Monday of the first forty days of Joy, Sourcing Joy,
in this new year of 2022, a kind of a month of Mondays for the whole year,
I light a candle for setting forth on this excursion
through the mythic pathways of the rivers of our world,
navigating the adventures and challenges in joy.
This candle sheds light this month on the elements of my personal Paradise:
horses and dogs and many four leggeds accompanying me and my entourage,
winged creatures of beauty and song,
surrounded by the gentle rhythms of water’s lapping and the powerful waves of the ocean’s surf.
Moving forward, the light leads me forward. . . .
January 3, 2022 @ 4:17 pm
Sounds like an exciting joyful adventure!
January 3, 2022 @ 5:56 pm
I am so inspired by this year of joy idea! Thank you, Peggy, for the ideas you so generously share with us. This year, I am following my “Life-long Compass of Joy”…..in the SE-the joy of showing up; NW-listening up; SW-opening up to my creativity; NE-growing up (evolving); W-lightening up; E-Wising up; N-Linking up; and S-Offering up. I am “upping my life.”
You are such a pure joy, Peggy!
January 3, 2022 @ 7:30 pm
The depths of joy come to me through my children, grand and great grand children, and my connections and friendships from high school through today. I dive deep and soar high to reach the depths and don’t always make it, but it’s always worth the attempt. I’m drawn to birds, their variety, beauty, habitats, colors, sounds. Birds are joy on the wing and I love them. I am so grateful they inhabit the earth, the trees, the mountains, the desert, the world. I imagine myself as a bird, moving so freely, bringing joy to the world.
January 4, 2022 @ 7:51 am
What a wondrous moment of synchronicity – which is, of course, no surprise – as this Elder Woman rounded the corner of 2022 with an unexpected burst of remembrance of many older dreams and offerings which began but have yet to fully express. Difficult familial situations, all those left turns in life when one was planning a right, and the last couple of years..well, you get it. The greatest joy of this moment is remembering what was fundamental Joy in the first place – and that those things remain and are easily accessed. Music, dance, theater – my life was as a teacher and participant and forever student. And academic achievement which I had always planned by never quite completed…all that remains in front of me as long as I can keep going. Why not? Our sharing together of the things I love the most was among the very first to be cut off at the knees, and yet to return except in small drips. It has been devastating for many of us. I am really tired of singing alone. But sing I will. And play my ancient piano. And go back to using my ballet barre (carefully)..until the day we are truly together again in communal joy and expression. And developing a doctoral program for myself, as it probably doesn’t exist in the fading reality. Starting now.
January 4, 2022 @ 5:21 pm
Thank You for these Blessings in 2022 .
What a wonderful daily
addition to Poetry .
I love hearing from you
on a daily basis .
Such a gift are you ♥️
January 6, 2022 @ 5:16 pm
I have worked with Peg for decades and know her to be an unwavering believer in joy as a generative and regenerative force that is ever present and accessible.
Her knowledge of and reverence for the many peoples of the world is astonishing and remarkable. This will be apparent as she guides us while teaching us, with river as metaphor, how to be sourced by what nourishes, how to be anchored in joy.
My joy anchor today is my connection to and with this beloved community.
January 6, 2022 @ 6:04 pm
In my great joy in receiving this wonderful invitation, I was a little confused about whether I need to sign up, and how to do that, if I do. Or maybe I already am!
If someone could clarify this, I would greatly appreciate it!
Joy to you all!
Shannon
January 7, 2022 @ 1:48 pm
Ditto Shannon King. Can you tell me how to sign up please,
Thank you, Flo Schell
January 23, 2022 @ 9:19 am
This is a virtual endeavor, Shannon, via email and posts on the website. There may be occasional virtual gatherings for which you will receive invitations via email and on these posts each month. You can sign up for the one coming up in February now, as detailed above.
January 6, 2022 @ 6:07 pm
Okay, now I think I understand and I think I am signed up. I look forward to this voyage together!
Shannon
January 7, 2022 @ 11:24 pm
My bout with Covid in 2020 has left me foggy headed, but I do have bursts of energy most days. I thought the booster would kill me, but I survived it. Much better to be out of it and aching for 3-4 days, than to feel the real Covid all over again, even the purportedly milder omicron. Probably the PTSD exaggerated the side effects for me.
But I want a better, joyful 2022. And I’d like to do it with you all. I want to stand up for myself and what I believe, but do no harm as I am doing it.
How do I register? How much does it cost? Make it simple for a poetic but very simple mind.
Love, MaryAnn
January 22, 2022 @ 9:04 pm
You can sign up for mailing list and subscribe to receive Peggy’s posts at the bottom of this page.
January 23, 2022 @ 9:17 am
This is a virtual endeavor, MaryAnn, via email and posts on the website. There may be occasional virtual gatherings for which you will receive invitations via email and on these posts each month. You can sign up for the one coming up in February now, as detailed above.
January 7, 2022 @ 11:52 pm
This journey is mystical for me. Memories are crowding my mind, as a child, young adult, woman, mom, sister, aunt. I felt such joy when spending time with my sister, my father and my aunt, and i can resurrect those images, the aromas, the tactile sense of the experience, the sounds, the tastes, the sights, most of which were in New York. They are my memories and my companions.
January 9, 2022 @ 9:53 am
I am taking this journey on a raft down the Mississippi with Huck Finn. I love adventure and exploring and I picked Huck as a companion because he sees as a child with fresh eyes –and because one of my great sources of joy is literature. I love entering another world and experiencing the emotions and realizations of the characters. I also find great joy in nature and am blessed to live within walking distance of a lake surrounded by beautiful old trees, oaks and elms and crabapple trees that blossom beautifully in the spring. In winter, when it is as cold as it has been the past week (25 to 35 below zero wind chills) I read and listen to music, and I have discovered that you can dance to classical music! This is another source of joy — they seem to be everywhere!
January 9, 2022 @ 10:49 am
Keeping Joy at the forefront of my thoughts and days..tricky in the rain and gloom of the PNW…
I received Peggy’s wonderful The Lady’s Year of Joy calendar yesterday. If you have not chosen to order it, I recommend it. A Source of Joy on its own.
Thank you, Peggy, and all the beautiful beings who contributed.
Woke up thinking about and remembering the happy chaos of teaching big kids, especially theatre. The stage, the auditorium, the noise, the energy higher than many older people can deal with. But I was born for that. And miss it more than breath some days.
Every day right now is a trip back to Joy. If only in my head and heart for the moment. Writing, re-membering (and there is quite a lot), refusal to continue to mourn anything, wondering about my place in a larger moving forward after the plague ends (will it?) and how I can be of service to those younger than myself whose life and dreams and plans have been upended in ways none of us could have imagined.
My heart is with them. And we have one sunny day in a month of gloom. I’m gone! Peace out.
January 10, 2022 @ 5:32 am
My mother’s family original family name is a Biblical one, and it is Sason , a Hebrew word as a Biblical synonym for Joy.
In Spain eons ago they were known as the “Susans”, there is a long line of Shoshana’s ( lily or the rose, in modern day French, Suzanne , means , lily , my sister is one , my grandmother another and so on in our family history ).
The modern day name of my mother’s family has now morphed into Sassoon, after my Great Great Great Grandfather, David, moved to Bombay, now modern day Mumbai.
Our ancestors lived in the Ottoman Empire, after centuries in Spain, they were called Sashun’s, after they were expelled from Spain, as Jews in 1492.
They were welcomed there and arrived by, naval vessel, to Constantinople . My grandmother Suzanne lived in Constantinople ( Istanbul, today ) and in Egypt ( part of Ottoman Empire), early in her life.
The family had British citizenship, dating back to the 1600’s from a Trade deal long before her birth, from the time King James 1 . The family lived in, Old Baghdad . Her ancestors in the Ottoman Empire were known as the Sashuns or Sassons. ( another name change ).
The Poet, Robert Graves wrote some lines about them in 1916 in his poem , Fairies and Fusiliers,
” In Old Baghdad we’ll call a halt
At the Sashun’s ancestral vault;
We’ll catch the Persian rose-flowers’ scent,
And understand what Omar meant. ”
Graves was a good friend of my cousin , Siegfried Sassoon,
the War Poet and Activist.
Eventually our relatives moved to Persia and from there to another exile
in Bombay, India. ( modern-day Mumbai )and the last of the name changes occurred.
Sassoon . The docks there are named after them and ironically enough, these same docks in the name of my great great great , Grandfather, David Sassoon , were the point of entry for the Mumbai attacks, in November 2009. I was living in Hong Kong
and I did not know the history of my mother’s family until I heard that blip on the TV.
I spent the year in Hong Kong researching my lost family history at the University of Science and Technology , Clear Water Bay . I had no idea they had lived in Hong Kong
and Shanghai in the past centuries. Nor the origin of the name.
I am saying this as I will take the Euphrates, in its junction with the Tigris , as my River flow to celebrate, my ancestors.
Our British Branch is also interesting. However that is not the story of an ancient land and the River Euphrates and the Tigris Rivers as my ancestral flow and the Joy
of living in another challenging time . I feel that I can sustain because I come from a long line of strong women who adapted and changed countries, nationalities ,
languages , hardships and good fortune over a protracted period of time. That exchange is worth having in this body of how to be in a time of upheaval and whole systems change, during a pandemic.
I wish to thank Peggy Rubin for bringing this back to me as I Imagine how to be in the Arc/Ark of my family whose history lies inside my DNA and that is how lucid
dreams of my Ancestors appear to me these days and I dialogue with them. I have
the joy of using my imagination to see them and I feel them closer to me, as I day dream, while awake. I might dream in my sleep at night, but if I do, I have no recall of such an activity. Perhaps , it is my very active imagination that works in daylight or in night, awakenings. I really do not know why I stopped dreaming in the Pandemic.
Still, perhaps dreams, come from the Ancestors in our DNA storage. I like to hold that, as an explanation about where dreams come from.
For all the joy, Peggy brings to us all and for her love that flows through this community to nourish and enrich our lives I am deeply grateful and more importantly,
nourished to flourish again , no matter how challenging life is or becomes. Just by
reading the beautiful written words and listening to what they mean both personally
and to this community . Peggy, has conjured up memories for us all, with the love that emanates from within her truly expansive Spirit.
I write in delight, because Peggy Rubin is, in this world now, at this time, with her
words and her indelible Spiritual Mark, which is the meaning of the word ,
“character” in latin. She takes her Holy Orders seriously and we benefit in myriad ways.
I give thanks, and ever thanks for her graciousness and her outstanding abilities
in the generous distribution or tributary of love, sweet, love, as a potion in motion , freely given, as River Flow.
January 14, 2022 @ 7:31 pm
Thank you so much, Michelle! What a fascinating and beautiful account of a literal and figurative River of Joy (Sason). I was totally engaged in reading about your family and how the generations have flowed through different times and countries and, clearly, kept an amazing energy, integrity and joyful spirit in you. (And what a great researcher you are!)
I hope to see you on the Dromenon.
Shannon King
January 11, 2022 @ 11:02 am
I am enjoying the play of light each changing day, the practice of noticing nuance.
Though I may not manage to participate frequently (feeling unevenly matched in contests with clock and calendar), I intend to engage my imagination in alert awareness of hints to present paradise.
Yesterday, the sight of Mt. McLaughlin, cloaked in snow, doing its/her Mt. Fuji impression, lifted my spirits to soaring heights.
January 14, 2022 @ 8:53 am
I am trying again to include a comment here. For some reason, my previous efforts have been unsuccessful, but it would give me great JOY to participate with you here. To begin, her is a poem sparked by Peggy’s invitation to appreciate moments of joy.
First Day New
Sometimes joy strikes with such intensity
that you want to sing
or cry
or run down the road with your arms spread
like wings
On this familiar road
after thirty-six days
that might have been twenty-eight
had I been closer
or further away
on this familiar road
all is as it was yet
the world is completely
entirely
New
waiting for me to live again
Copyright © 2021 Mary Beth Watt. All rights reserved.
January 23, 2022 @ 8:06 am
Thank you, Michelle Massi for the genealogy of my name, Suzanne.
Happily, I have no choice but to practice joy.
January 23, 2022 @ 1:04 pm
What a beautiful invitation to wake up to this morning! Because I have been thinking about my Celtic ancestors lately who came from the British Isles, my imagination decided to take a plunge into the North Atlantic off the west coast of Ireland. (Brrr)
I am walking into the ocean against strong, dark waves, and I dive in to search for one of those currents that will carry me out to sea. The first thing I notice is that I can breathe. There is no problem, and though the water is cold, I am warm, and I notice I have developed a fine covering of hair over my skin, like a seal. The sun is shining through the water giving it a beautiful green glow with rising bubbles catching the sunlight, and fish come an look at me, some gliding by and others swimming beside me.
I don’t know what I’m looking for, but these are seas that my ancestors sailed on, swam in, and, perhaps, drowned in. There is light but also darkness. I am aware of so much power here. Poseidon’s kingdom, full of danger and full of life. I see a golden ring caught in a crevice of rock. I swim away from it. That is not what I want. I wonder if there are rooms under the sea where creatures who look like me might live and play. In the distance I sea a garden of Coral glowing with color and life. Then, suddenly, another strong current lifts and takes me away. And I find myself swimming under the water in a warm, calm lake in Michigan that I swam in every summer as a child growing up. My friends are all there, and the water is golden now, the bottom, a fine sand with schools of minnows veering this way and that above it. My best friend is beside me and we rise to the surface, then climb up onto the diving dock so that we can dive again… and again.
I bring back many gifts from this journey. Breath, of course, being the first, but the one that carries me along and that I would show to others, like a shining, marvelous stone from the sea, is Imagination. We all have it. Using it is a never ending, bubbling fountain of Joy.
Thank you for being a fellow traveller on this voyage.
January 23, 2022 @ 6:28 pm
Thank you Peggy for this amazing journey with joy. I realized I needed a boat and looked at exotic house boats and found out I can rent one in India, that’s where the one I loved lives. Wouldn’t be amazing to rent a house boat and find our joy all together in Kerala, India?
In my personal life all is well. I am going to have a photography show in Lithuania in September. I’ve been digging into my archive and scanning negatives in preparation for the show. It’s a joyful project. It makes me so happy to reconnect with my photographs. People have reached out to help with technical aspects of all of this, which is very wonderful and gratifying. Sending you all so much love and joy, Hollis
January 24, 2022 @ 6:08 am
Notes to the ship’s log —
Such jubilant discovery -that i need only tune and recalibrate my attention, a tweek, to align myself with the sources joy in any moment.
All the tried and true practices – finding and following my breath, allowing beauty to find me, expanding my viewpoint, anchoring my toes in the earth – or wiggling them in the waters -are how this wellspring of joy is completely –portable! I need only invite them in for joy refreshment to find me. But, therein lies the rub – it is too easy override it or allow it to be overridden…
It is delicious to have a community of joy seekers, joy practicers, joy embodiers, joy writers, joy travelers, joy explorers to embark on this journey.
I love it when i get a joy hit – when a sun rise or a cloud pattern take my breath away. Or this smooth contented joy, when i look out at the sheep in the field and i feel cycle of life. Then there are these mysterious joys of The Great Wonder when I enter the workings of my body or when i look at the stars.
There are hues and a spectrum to this joy – with a language we might develop (like that of snow for indigenous dwellers of the North).
What do we call that very specific joy of seeing and holding paradox? Of learning things that are satisfying— or the magnificient a-ha! moments.
How about that joy of navigating rapids — the one where you test your skills ?
I am on the boat!
January 25, 2022 @ 8:32 am
Thank you, Jane. I loved reading about all your sources of joy and how you connect with them. I share those sources with you. This morning I was struck by a pattern of frost on my window with the sun shining through it making the wonderful garden! It was so beautiful. I also love your thought about making a language to express all the hues and spectrums of Joy. Like the eskimos and snow. They probably have a special word for my frost garden. And now on with the day…
January 26, 2022 @ 10:53 am
I so love coming here to read the expanding (and expansive) entries by so many wonderful Beings….thank you for magically entering my world.
I am so excited and wish to share a very recent journey, although which river or waterway I cannot quite connect it with yet (aside from Styx and Acheron of the past year or more)…This short tale ends with a dream just a few hours ago.
Last week I dreamed about Joel Fleischman (of Northern Exposure fame, a series I own in entirety and remain amazed by constantly. Joel and I are closely aligned. This could be predicated by the Zabar’s lox and bagels I ordered recently from 3000 miles away).
The dream itself was brief and to the point and very reminiscent of the last episode he was in…on returning to the Jeweled City of the North. I opened my eyes and said “The Hero’s Journey”..and went back to sleep.
Knowing that this is a Campbell thing, and not necessarily a woman’s thing, I turned to The Book of my life, WWW by the sainted Dr. Pinkola-Estes and reread “The Handless Maiden”…a chapter I had once committed to memory. And there I was again. On my way. Still in the Underworld, but nearing the finish line.
A few days ago, either in meditation or just hearing the Inner Knower, a very clear message was given….”You are living an impossible life. You must jump the chasm”.
More Campbell, who probably stole the line from somewhere. Understanding the point immediately, the next question was “To Where? What is on the other side?”
I received my answer…which stays interior for now. It is multidimensional, of course.
This morning I had a Predator dream – not at all surprising in this world of daily stalking and the fear machine dialed up to gazillion…but this ended very well.
I was afraid…yes. Just he and I in a building that sure looked like a grammar school perhaps. I said No. Just No. To his face, to his threats, to his gun (I think he had one). I walked towards him as he backed up towards a door. And kept saying No, firmly, without panic, much like a clear parent. And he opened the door and left.
Say No…to all of it. This is the river to freedom, wherever it may be…
February 26, 2022 @ 9:54 am
This came at an incredibly good time. Thanks Peggy!
February 26, 2022 @ 11:06 pm
Joy is found in the heart. For only the heart knows the joy of life. Be it from sorrow to the joys of being. Joy is found deep within and rises with every thought… of love, of giving, and of finding one who helps push you through the hard times of life, finding more than you can imagine to fill your heart. With the most profound joy you can imagine.
With love at your side and the one who shows you the way, anything can become possible. Remember me and I can set you free, free to explore and make good on the promise you made before you came. I was and am here to help you along the path. Although I’m not here with you now in the physical. I am in your heart forever and ever. Bringing you joy to take forward. You are my heart and soul, together we made great gains in a world moving forward. Joy is found in the heart and the heart is full of love. Always in my heart, always with me. Thank you dear one.